{"id":110,"date":"2019-04-01T14:35:02","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T12:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/192.168.10.2\/blog\/?p=110"},"modified":"2019-09-10T18:32:52","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T16:32:52","slug":"sport-as-softpower-for-the-great-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lab52.io\/blog\/sport-as-softpower-for-the-great-powers\/","title":{"rendered":"Sport as Softpower for the great Powers."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

APT is the acronym of Advanced Persistent Threat. That is the name that receives a group of attackers that usually is related to a Nation-State to carry out cyberattacks to a concrete organizations that are considered targets by the threat group and the State which is sponsoring it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cyber \u200b\u200bespionage has increased towards\nanti-doping sports organizations. Between 2016 and 2018, several cyber-attacks\nagainst important international anti-doping organizations were identified. As quoted\nby A. Villal\u00f3n ([1]) in his post<\/a>\nabout the GRU activity in October 2018 “the British NCSC publicly accused the GRU of cyber-espionage activities\nagainst the World Anti-Doping Agency agency (WADA)<\/em>“. Cyber-\u200b\u200battacks\nare also attributed to the IOC (International Olympic Committee Antidoping) and\nCCES (Canadian Center Ethics for Sports) where allegedly among its main\nobjectives was to capture the credentials of anti-doping officers and\ntechnicians to subsequently access classified information . Another anti-doping\ntechnician, in this case from the USADA (US Antidoping Agency), which was\nlocated in Rio de Janeiro during the Olympic Games, had his email account\ncompromised from the hotel’s Wi-Fi by alleged GRU agents (it is recommended\nthat A. Villal\u00f3n\u2019s posts on the GRU<\/a>\n([1]), Unit\n74455<\/a> ([3]) and 26165<\/a>\n([2])) be read). From the different events related\nto cyberespionage within international anti-doping organizations, we can see\nthat international sport has more relevance for world superpowers like Russia\nthan it does “a priori”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sport has always been\na useful psychosocial tool ([4]) for\nsuper-power governments to encourage certain emotions, feelings and even values\namong their citizens. The national sporting successes of a country generate\nfeelings of social union, reducing a possible ideological tension of the same.\nThere is a psychosocial effect<\/strong> ([7]) where society tends to link its feelings of patriotic and national identity <\/strong>with the international\nsporting successes of its country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Sport\ncould be considered as one of the “softpower” parts of a government\nor state. This concept of “softpower<\/strong>”\nis understood as that strategic action carried out by a government through\nstate cultural elements such as sports, art or institutional acts to carry out\nmodifications of the values, behaviors and feelings of its citizens. We would\nunderstand as “hardpower<\/strong>”\nthose diplomatic, military and economic actions undertaken by a State to\ncontrol certain elements of national interest and security.     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the nineteenth\ncentury, the use of sport by the governments of states considered superpowers\nincreased considerably. Great Britain and Russia were States that undertook a softpower\nstrategy within the field of sport to generate a sense of sport supremacy<\/strong> with the intention that an extrapolation to other\nstate sectors is carried out. Through sporting success, governments seek to\nconvey a feeling of superiority over other States, aiming to generate the\nperception of supremacy that will probably lead to increased patriotism<\/strong> in society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the XXth\ncentury, this sports softpower strategy was used by the authoritarian\ngovernments of Russia and Germany among others. Both States sought to generate\na sense of supremacy among their citizens and at the same time aimed to increase\nleisure and distraction within their societies, since they had high levels of\nsocial repression. Their main objectives were, first and foremost, to maintain\npatriotism based on feelings of racial, national and cultural supremacy. Secondly,\nthey sought to generate a psychosocial\nmeans of positively channeling the oppression<\/strong> and social tension suffered\nby the authoritarian governments themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Olympic Games that\ntook place during the Cold War period were highly useful for the rulers of the\nUSSR and the US to influence the creation of the national identity of Soviet\nand American citizens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n